Jews, Israel and spies

In May 1997 the Washington Post ran a front page story reporting that "the FBI has opened an investigation to determine whether a senior U.S. government official has been passing highly sensitive information to the Israeli government." [BOUSTANY, p. 1] The four month-old investigation originated because of a conversation intercepted by the National Security Agency, between a Washington-based Israeli intelligence officer and a superior in Tel Aviv. Code named by the Israelis as "Mega," the Post noted that the intercepted conversation led U.S. government officials "to believe that Mega may be someone in the U.S. government who has provided information to Israelis in the past." [BOUSTANY, p. 1]

Israel's Ambassador to the United States, Eliahu Ben-Elissor, complained that "apparently there is someone [who leaked the story to the press] who not only wants to besmirch the name of Israel, but also perhaps to cause damage to the relations between Israel and America." [GELLMAN, B, p. A20] Gerald Steinberg, a foreign policies professor at Bar Elan University in Israel, noted the tension at the time between President Clinton and Israeli prime minister Benyamin Netanyahu over Israeli reluctance to concessions in the Clinton-brokered Arab-Israeli peace process. "When American-Israeli relations already seem tense," noted Steinberg, "over a whole series of other issues, this is a killer issue." [BOUSTANY, p. 1]

The Metro West Jewish News noted that "because the Mega story appeared the same day the administration's top peace process diplomat, Dennis Ross, was meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, it is hard to escape the conclusion that the leak was intended to transmit a message to the [Israeli] prime minister: Never mind the pro-Israel/reluctant-to-take-on-the-Jews Clinton White House --we can still get you.' [METRO-JEWISH NEWS, 5-15-97, p. 4] The Baltimore Jewish News complained that the Washington Post printed, with the "Mega" story, a side article about Israeli Ambassador Ben-Elissar, who spent ten years working for Israel's CIA (the Mossad). [BESSER, J, SPYING, p. 34] Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations told reporters that he was confident the Mega story "will blow over." [MANN, C, p. 1] "There's something almost sinister about the way this was reported," suggested Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, "with so little real information. And there's something disturbing about the link the Post made to the Pollard case." [BESSER, J, Spy Charges, p. 1]

The "Mega" story was reported by no other major American newspaper other than the Washington Post. And it suddenly evaporated from the Post pages with no further exploration, or explanation, of the story.

British journalist Gordon Thomas, author of a 1999 volume on the Mossad (based on over 100 hours of interviews with Mossad officials and agents), observed that Mega

"may be more than one person. What's incredible is not so much

that they have an American mole at the highest level of the United

States government, but how this small [Israeli] intelligence community

of about 1,200 people is able to mobilize sayanim [American Jewish

agents for the Mossad], and control the American media and the

publishing worlds, and get people like Barbara Streisand to spout

'Israel-first, America-second' propaganda to the president of the

United States over the dinner table at the White House." [HOWE, R.,

6-99, p. 47]

Jewish spies for Israel in the White House is an old, albeit hidden, theme. In 1988, for instance, there was suggestion in some newspapers that a complicated spy-prisoner deal was being worked out with Israel which would "involve the U.S. halting further investigations in the Jonathan Pollard case." "Pollard," note Jewish authors Ian Black and Benny Morris, "was already serving a life sentence, but Israeli officials were apparently worried that further inquiries might unearth more spies in the heart of the United States administration." [BLACK/MORRIS, p. 443] "Many in the United States intelligence community," says Seymour Hersh, "... were convinced that [Pollard] had one and perhaps many more accomplices inside the [U.S.] government -- men or women who were supplying Israel with the identification of highly classified documents that Pollard could then be assigned to retrieve." [HERSH, S., p. 307] Interestingly, by 1996, "both the Israeli ambassador to the U.S. and the Israeli ambassador to Canada were former Mossad officers." [OSTROVSKY, 1997, p. 37] (When George Bush assumed the presidency in 2001, Jewish Congressman Anthony Weiner "immediately beseeched" the new president "on his first workday as president' to "grant Pollard clemency.") [JORDAN, M., 1-26-01]

In May 2000, a Washington DC paper, Insight on the News, after interviewing over two dozen government officials about the problem, described the results of its year long investigation into Israeli spying in the American government:

"The FBI is probing an explosive foreign espionage operation that

could dwarf the other spy scandals plaguing the U.S. government.

Insight has learned that FBI counterintelligence is tracing a daring

operation to spy on high-level U.S. officials by hacking into

supposedly secure telephone networks. The espionage was

facilitated, federal officials say, by lax telephone-security procedures

at the White House, State Department and other high-level

government offices and by Justice Department unwillingness to

seek an indictment against a suspect. The espionage operation

may have serious ramifications because the FBI has identified

Israel as the culprit." [WALLER/RODRIGUEZ, 2000]

As always, a "senior government official" remarked that "It is a politically sensitive matter. I can't comment on it beyond telling you that anything involving Israel on this particular matter is off-limits. It's that hot." "When it has anything to do with Israel," said a former U.S. intelligence officer, "it's something you just never want to poke your nose into." "What price should Israel pay for this?" David Major, former director of counterintelligence programs as the National Security Council said to the paper, "My predictions are that there will be no impact whatsoever. Do we put our heads in the sand or do we take it as a wake-up call?" [WALLER/RODRIGUEZ, 2000]

In December 2001, a series of Fox News TV programs noted the omnipresence of Israeli "ears" and Jewish power in shielding them from scrutiny:

     "Most directory assistance calls, and virtually all call records and billing
     in the U.S. are done for the phone companies by Amdocs Ltd., an
     Israeli-based private telecommunications company. Amdocs has contracts
     with the 25 biggest phone companies in America, and more worldwide.
     The White House and other secure government phone lines are protected,
     but it is virtually impossible to make a call on normal phones without generating
     an Amdocs record of it. In recent years, the FBI and other government
     agencies have investigated Amdocs more than once. The firm has repeatedly
     and adamantly denied any security breaches or wrongdoing. But sources tell
     Fox News that in 1999, the super secret national security agency, headquarted
     in northern Maryland, issued what's called a Top Secret sensitive
     compartmentalized information report, TS/SCI, warning that records of
     calls in the United States were getting into foreign hands -- in Israel, in
     particular." [CAMERON, C., pt. 2, 12-14-01[

A second Fox News report notes:

     "An Israeli-based company called Amdocs Ltd. ... generates the computerized
     records and billing data for nearly early phone call made in America ... [A second
     Israeli company, Comverse Infosys] provides wiretapping for law enforcement ...
     Adding to the suspicions is the fact that in Israel, Comverse works closely with the
     Israeli government, and under special programs, gets reimbursed up to 50 percent
     of its research and development costs by the Israeli Ministry of Industry and Trade.
     But investigators within the DEA, INS, and FBI have all told Fox News that to
     pursue or even suggest Israeli spying thorugh Comverse is considered career
     suicide." [CAMERON, C., pt. 3, 12-14-01]

Cameron's reports about Israeli spying amounted to four in total. He was the first representative of a news organization to also report that scores of Israeli nationals had been rounded up after the September 11 terrorist attack.

In fact, after the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center, a vast swirl of disturbing clues about Israeli spying in America began to appear -- however delicately -- in small sections of the mass media. (Most media sources -- overwhelmingly Jewish in control -- censored or ignored the stories. The Fox News articles cited above, for example, were withdrawn, with no explanation, from the company's web site within a week. Fox is owned by non-Jewish, but ardently pro-Israel, Rupert Murdoch). The well-known French magzine Le Monde, the French Online Intelligence Letter, and antiwar.com were among the very, very few in the vanguard of inquiry about Israeli spying in America. However guarded about the implications of the widening Israeli spy story, the Associated Press noted that

     "Authorities have arrested and deported since early last year dozens
     of young Israelis who represented themselves as art students in efforts
     to gain access to restricted buildings and homes, U.S. officials said.
     The Israelis tried to get inside sensitive federal office buildings and the
     homes of government employees, officials said. A draft report from the
     Drug Enforcement Administration -- which first       characterized the
     activities as suspicious -- said the youths' actions 'may well be an
     organized intelligence-gathering activity ... The arrests, made in an
     unspecified number of major U.S. cities from California to Florida,
     came amid public warnings from U.S. intelligence agencies about
     suspicious behavior by people posing as Israeli art students and
     'attempting to bypass facility security and enter federal buildings
     ... A Justice Department official, who also asked not to be identified,
     and investigators have been aware of some 'alleged linkage' between
     the students and alleged espionage activities in the United States since
     early 2001, and said authorities have made arrests in Dallas, Chicago,
     San Diego and in South Florida." [BRIDIS, T., 3-6-02, LOS ANGELES TIMES]

These "art students" supposedly had links to the Universal Art Inc. at 10873 NW 52nd St in Sunrise, Florida. Soon after their busts the Sun-Sentinal noted that "there was no sign of a company called Universal Art Inc ... No one answered the door, and several occupants had not heard of the company. The comnpany's officers, Yitzchak Shish and Chava Sagi, are not listed. The were not among those deported ..." [RAIMONDO, J., 3-8-2002]

Le Monde outlined the entire Israel spy story as it then appeared, connecting the Israeli phone companies and the vast spy network to suggest that the Israelis obviously knew of the imminent attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon but did not warn the U.S. government. (This ruthless Machiavellian attitude of course would guarantee a greater American receptivity to Israeli views and needs if America suffered a major terrorist blow). Le Monde, citing Online Intelligence Letter evidence, estimates that about 120 Israeli spies were rounded up in America, echoing on a much larger scale the results of an earlier "secret" investigation "by division 5 of the FBI regarding Israeli phone-tapping targeting the White House, the State Department and the National Security Council." Le Monde contacted Fox News three times asking for a "tape of the broadcast" by Carl Cameron but "it was never done. On February 26, Fox told our correspondent in New York that sending it posed 'a problem,' without being specific." [CYPEL, S., 3-5-02] [online at: http://www.antiwar.com/rep/lemonde1.html]

Le Monde's own investigation further revealed that

     "six of the intercepted 'students' had a cellular phone bought
     by an Israeli ex-vice-consul in the United States ...
     Five at least were intercepted in Hollywood [Florida],
     and two in Fort Lauderdale. Hollywood is a town of
     25,000 inhabitants north of Miami, close to Fort Lauderdale.
     At least 10 of the 19 terrorists of 9/11 were residing in Florida ...
     Four of the five members of the group that diverted American
     Airlines flight number 11 ... resided all at various times in Hollywood
     Florida ... This convergence is, inter alia, the origin of the American
     conviction that one of the tasks of the Israeli 'students' would have
     been to track the Al-Qaida terrorists on their territory, without
     informing the federal authorities of the existence of the plot."
     [CYPEL, S., 3-5-2002]

Citing a classified U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) report they had somehow acquired, the Online Intelligence web site names some of the captured Israeli spies: Peer Segalovitz ("military registration number 5087989"), Aran Ofek ("son of a renowned two-star general in the Israeli army"), Michael Calmanovic ("headed up the team in Irving, Texas), Hanan Serfaty (headed the Israeli team in Florida), Legum Yochai (headed the Miami) operation. Spies intercepted a year ago included Yaron Ohana, Ronen Kalfon, Zeev Cohen and Naor Topaz. "The network," wrote Online Intelligence, "targeted some of the most sensitive sites in the U.S., such as Tanker Air Force Base near Oklahoma City." [RAIMONDO, J., 3-8-02] [http://www.antiwar.com/justin/justincol.html]

As Justin Raimondo notes, citing Online Intelligence material:

     "It seems these 'art students' 'cultivated contacts with Israeli
     information technology compnaies based in the US and serving
     as regular suppliers to various U.S. federal agencies, such as
     Amdocs' and others. The Fox News is cited, by Online Intelligence
     and Le Monde, and the former even provides a convenient map of the
     Texas chapter of the 'art students' underground appareatus, complete
     with not only names, but arrival dates, corporate connections, when and
     where they were arrested, and their specific functions in the Israeli
     military-intelligence apparatus. How much more evidence do we need
     before the editorialists and the pundits start calling government
     officials on their lies -- and Congres begins an investigation?"
     [RAIMONDO, J., 3-8-2002]

Amidst the many resultant US and Israeli government denials and cover-up about this gigantic Israeli spy story, the Intelligence Online organization's spokesman Guillaume Dasquie announced that

     "It seems irresponsible for us to publish it, but if the denials go on,
     we could put the report on our Internet site and in so doing possibly
     blacken the names of the people most exposed ... The document we
     have [the DEA report] we details not only the identities of the members
     of this network, but also their activities in the Israeli army, and even their
     serial numbers in the intelligence services, their passport numbers and
     their validity, and their visas and their validity."
     [RAIMONDO, J., 3-8-2002]

Among those under suspicion as an Israeli spy in the heart of American government in earlier years was Howard Teicher, a (Jewish) National Security Council adviser. "Middle East experts in the State Department," noted John Walcott of the Wall Street Journal, "the NSC staff and some Washington think tanks conducted a tireless whispering campaign against him, intimating that he was an Israeli agent." "Teicher's life resembled that of tens of thousands of other young American Jews," says the Jerusalem Post with no sense of irony in the implications of that statement, "... [He] had a bar mitzva, went to Camp Ramah, spent a summer in Israel at age 17, learned Hebrew in high school and then in college worked in the fish pond at kibbutz Neveh Or [in Israel]." [RODAN, 1994, p. 18]

Then, in 2001, there is the mysterious three paragraph article from the Israeli newspaper Haaretz about Robert Philip Hanssen, an American FBI agent turned Russian spy who represented "one of the worst cases of espionage in the history of the United States." The Haaretz headline proclaimed Israeli Angle in U.S. Spy Case Causes Worry in Jerusalem, and then noted that "the recent confrontation between the United States and Russia over the serious espionage case involving FBI agent Robert Philip Hanssen has an Israel angle. This has been the subject of concern at the highest political and security echelons in Jerusalem in the past few days." [BENN, A., 4-4-01] The article explains nothing else at all about the dimensions of this "Israeli angle," nor has any other media source ever taken up the story.

Fox News had addressed the subject of Israeli spies in America after the September 11 terrorist attacks:

     "Since September 11, more than 60 Israelis have been arrested
     or detained, either under the new patriot anti-terrorist law,
     or for immigration violations. A handful of active Israeli military
     were among those detained, according to investigators, who say
     some of the detainees also failed polygraph questions when asked
     about alleged surveillance activities against and in the United States.
     There is no indication that the Israelis were involved in the 9/11 attacks,
     but investigators suspect that the Israelis may have gathered intelligence
     about the attacks in advance, and not shared it. A highly placed
     investigator said there are 'tie-ins' ... Numerous classified documents
     obtained by Fox News indicate that even prior to September 11,
     as many as 140 other Israelis had been deatined or arrested in a secretive
     and sprawling investigation into suspected espionage by Israelis in the
     United States." [CAMERON, C., pt. 1, 12-14-2001]

What about the aforementioned CIA head John Deutch (and perhaps others in his circle) as a very strong candidate for the Jewish-Israeli "Mega" club? In 2000, a troubling story about him began to hit the newsstands, revolving around an incident that happened as he was leaving his CIA post in 1996. Deutch, who became Director of the CIA after leaving his position as Deputy Secretary of Defense, was caught with 1,700 pages of CIA documents -- many secret, and classified -- on his home computer, one that had also been a visitor to "high-risk" Internet pornography sites. Members in Congress were not informed of Deutch's security lapses until 1998 and not until the year 2000 did all this come under public scrutiny. And he was afforded top-level Pentagon security clearance until late 1999.

Deutch was known to be a problem earlier in his career when it came to secret information. "According to a knowledgeable official who asked not be identified," noted the (New Jersey) Record, "while Deutch was serving as a senior Defense Department official [the number two in command] in the early 1990s, he failed a polygraph test about his handling of classified materials. The official said Pentagon security officers were concerned because Deutch took highly classified material home with him, but his security clearances were not revoked or downgraded." [THE RECORD, 2-5-2000, p. A6]

An investigation of Deutch's information cache was undertaken by the CIA Inspector General. The IG report, noted the New York Times, "disclosed that just three days after Mr. Deutch learned that his computer practices were under review, he deleted more than 1,000 classified files from his personal computers. The report also says that Mr. Deutch declined to be interviewed by the CIA's security officials." [RISEN, J., 2-12-2000] Deutch had been taking secret CIA information home for years. As the Times notes, "according to the IG report, "Mr. Deutch used unclassified MacIntosh computers for classified work through his tenure as director. He chose not to conduct sensitive work on the classified computer system at the CIA because he said he was afraid the other CIA officials would see what he was writing, according to the report." [RISEN, J., 2-12-2000]

"This is strange behavior, very suspicious," remarked the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Richard Shelby, about Deutch's actions, "It's unprecedented, to my knowledge." [THE RECORD, 2-5-2000]

The CIA investigators, noted a European paper, "became so frustrated at the limits imposed on them that they concluded senior [CIA] officials were protecting Mr. Deutch and wanted to wash their hands of the case." [BRANSON, L., 2-2-2000, p. 12] "Mr. Deutch," said the New York Times, "refused to be interviewed by the security staff and senior CIA officials allowed him to avoid being questioned." [RISEN, J.] A number of media members began calling Deutch's case a "cover-up." The CIA didn't report Deutch's misdeeds to the Justice Department for over a year. The CIA's Inspector General only did so in 1998 "after an agency employee complained to the Inspector General's office that the inquiry had not been properly handled." [RISEN, J., 2-12-2000] The Justice Department declined to prosecute the former Director of the CIA.

The Deutch revelation, remarked a Scottish paper, "is particularly embarrassing in the light of the high profile case of Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee, who is being held in jail without bail. He is suspected of transferring secrets from the nuclear research base to the Chinese. The charges against him so far are for exactly what Mr. Deutch did: transferring files from work to his home computer." [BRANSON, L., 2-2-2000, p. 12] Like Deutch, there was no hard evidence that Lee passed along information to a foreign government, but Lee languished in solitary confinement 23 hours a day as a suspected spy (imprisoned for taken classified work home), while Deutch merely had his clearances to enter CIA and Pentagon databases taken away.

It was even discovered that Deutch had helped a CIA official, Nora Slatkin, get a job as a vice-president at CITIBANK while she was working on the investigation of his breach of security case. [RISEN, J., 2-12-2000, p. A10] In recent years Deutch has been a professor at MIT and an adviser to weapons companies. He was paid over $240,000, for example, in 1998-99 as a non-employee director at Raytheon and member of that company's board of governors. [MCLAUGHLIN, T., 3-30-2000, p. 25] As Bill Clinton left the White House in 2001, Clinton granted Deutch a full pardon, surprising the CIA even as it continued its investigation.

In 1999, Iran tersely rejected the formal protests lodged by the French minister of France "that the arrest [of 13 Iranian] Jews [on accusations of spying for Israel] was intolerable." The ambassador "summoned the Iranian ambassador [in France] to express France's anger." [INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE, 6-22-99, p. 4] This small item meriting international attention and formal French "outrage" bears further scrutiny. Most such news reports on the subject neither itemized the charges against the Jews, nor evidence for or against them. As always, the reportage of such an occasion, with no context whatsoever, merely encourages the reader to absorb between the lines evidence of yet another case of endemic, irrational anti-Semitism. This time from Iran. Yet there are strong historical contexts and precedents for such accusation. Israel's Mossad was long prominent in the former Iranian Shah's secret police network (See later chapter). As recently as March 1998 too, three Mossad agents made the news after trying to bug a Muslim activist's home in London. Only a few days later another four Israeli spy members were arrested in Switzerland after bugging another Lebanese Muslim's home. These incidents, and the failed attempt to assassinate an anti-Israel Hamas official in Jordan, forced the head of Mossad, Danny Yatom, to resign. [MAHNAIMI, U., 1998]

And there has always been widespread Israeli spying on Arab countries, using Israeli Jews who originally came from those very lands. Take for example, Israel's original spying unit on Arabs called Shin Mem 18, [BLACK/MORRIS, p. 43] created for the "infiltration and implantation of Israeli agents in Arab countries." [BLACK/MORRIS, p. 43]

Or take for example the case of Yolande Harmer, "born in Egypt to a Turkish-Jewish mother," who" posed as a journalist in her home country and took "on a succession of lovers, some of them simultaneously, mostly from Egypt's rich and powerful and from the foreign diplomatic corps in Cairo." [BLACK/MORRIS, p. 61]

In 1998, the Times of London noted the profoundly ruthless and dedicated degree that Israeli espionage can go. In a newly-discovered story, the paper revealed that "members of an Israeli undercover unit in the 1950s went so far as to marry Muslim women and have children by them to ward off suspicion ... The unit was designed for long-term espionage. Its members, Sephardim from a variety of Arab countries, were taught to speak in Palestinian accents ... Ironically, because they had been so rigorously taught the Koran, some became teachers, which gave them perfect cover for spying." [WALKER, C., 9-30-98] (So, when seemingly ridiculous Polish communist-era "antisemitic and anti-Zionist propaganda" proclaimed that "Jews had been instructed by their 'world center' command post to marry Polish girls in order to gain influence over the population and thus be able to pursue their subversive and espionage activities more effectively," what are we to reasonably think of it? [CHEMCINSKI, M., 1982, p. 217]

Other Israeli spying units (later blending into today's Mossad) using indigenous Arab-speaking Jews included Shai (the Arab Division of the Jewish Agency political department) and Palmach's "Arab Platoon." In the 1950s an Israeli spy, Major Avraham Dar, "recruited a group of Egyptian Jewish youngsters and set up underground [Zionist] cells in Cairo and Alexandria." [BLACK/MORRIS, p. 108] In 1954 "the [Jewish] Egyptian network embarked on its bombing spree ... [However] a bomb went off prematurely in the pocket of one of the group, Philip Natanson, as he was about to enter the Rio Cinema in Alexandria. Natanson was arrested and that night the Egyptian security police arrested the rest of the network: Dr. Moshe Marzuk, Shmuel Azzar, Marcelle Ninio, Victor Levi, Robert Dassa, Meir Za'afran, Meir Meynhas, Eli Ya'akov, and Azzar Cohen." [BLACK/MORRIS, p. 111]

Quite possibly echoing the recent Jewish-Iranian spy accusation, Israeli intelligence "activated a wide range of European contacts to try to improve the treatment or obtain the release of the Cairo defendants. Among those approached were French parliamentarians such as Coure de Marville and Daniel Maier and leading British and French lawyers." [BLACK/MORRIS, p. 113] The West German government was even persuaded to act on behalf of one of the Israeli spies, Max Binnet, recognizing his questionable German citizenship. "After his death," note Ian Black and Benny Morris, "in a rare piece of inter-Arab intelligence cooperation, the Iraqis informed Cairo that Binnet ... had been mentioned in the 1951 Mossad ring trial in Baghdad [regarding] the extensive spy network that had operated in Iraq and Iran." [BLACK/MORRIS, p. 113] In 1965, in another situation, Eli Cohn, born and raised in Egypt, was the "first Israeli spy caught and executed as an Israeli." [BLACK/MORRIS, p. 48]

In Morocco, in the 1950s "hundreds of Jewish volunteers were mobilized in a Mossad-led Jewish self-defense organization." [BLACK/MORRIS, p. 176] "Over 100 [Jewish Moroccans] went abroad -- mostly to Israel -- for military training, though some were trained in Morocco itself: cells and 'units' were organized in the main towns (eventually there were twelve local units); arms were bought and dispensed in underground caches ... The members were trained in the uses of pistols, sub-machine guns and knives. At its height [the Jewish Moroccan secret cell] had 600 members (and in Algeria and Tunisia, another 600 altogether)." [MORRIS/BLACK, p. 176]

Zionist intrigue in Eastern Europe? From the early years of the Israeli state, note Ian Black and Benny Morris, "new Jewish immigrants [to Israel] from behind the Iron Curtain, Israeli diplomatic missions, and Jewish communities in Eastern Europe all served as valuable sources of intelligence." [BLACK/MORRIS, p. 136]

In response to French parliamentary speaker Laurent Fabius' recent call to release the imprisoned Iranian Jews before a trial, Iran's Tehran Times responded, saying that "Mr. Fabius is probably under the influence of Zionists." [AGENCE PRESSE FRANCE, 7-3-99] Fabius too is of Jewish heritage.

1999's White House coddling of the Jewish lobbying empire and international Zionist spy networks included the Islamic nation of Iran. The (Jewish) Forward noted that "At last weekends G-7 talks in Germany, President Clinton asked the Japanese government to refrain from approving their third loan installment of $820 million to Iran until the 13 [Jewish] prisoners are freed." [SPENCE] These 13 Iranian Jews, arrested and accused by Iran of spying for Israel (7 non-Jews arrested in the alleged ring are rarely mentioned in the Western press), had not even been yet been brought to trial to prove their guilt or innocence, yet the American president was an active lobbyist for Jewish/Israeli interests to ignore Iranian sovereignty and demand, pre-trial, all the suspects' categorical freedom. Jewish American National Security Adviser Sandy Berger wrote a formal letter to the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations assuring them that the President planned to "seek international assistance" in freeing the 13. The Jerusalem Post noted the dimensions of international Jewish activism about the issue, noting that an Israeli "Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said Israel had approached practically every country with which it had diplomatic relations and asked help for seeking the release of the Iranian Jews." [KUTTLER, 6-18-1999]

Iranian officials even revealed that some of the accused Jewish prisoners had confessed that they spied for Israel. Nonetheless, U.S. Secretary or State Madeline Albright announced that "We have made this very clear that this is an unacceptable trial. There is absolutely no reason for them to brought up on espionage charges." A prominent Iranian religious leader, Mohammed Emami Kashani, responded to Albright, saying, "You are a political leader, not a judicial official ... There are international laws. Relations between the countries are based on laws ... Woman, you who are Secretary of State, on what logic have you based your remarks? On what basis?" [AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE, 10-22-99]

Years earlier, as context for understanding such an international Jewish pressure campaign, we may look to Morocco. In 1960 an Israeli-sponsored "underground military cell" (as two Jewish scholars describe it), consisting of about 600 people, was exposed among Jews in that Arab land. Many were arrested. Israel then "foreswore secret diplomacy," notes Ian Black and Benny Morris, "and launched a widespread public campaign on behalf of Moroccan Jewry. U.S. President John Kennedy sent a personal message to King Muhammad; a group of American Congressmen threatened to table a bill to stop U.S. aid to Morocco unless the "persecution" stopped. French President Charles de Gaulle was also mobilized to exert pressure on [Morocco's capital] Rabat." [BLACK/MORRIS, p. 179] The imprisoned Jews were eventually released. The head of Israel's Mossad, Isser Harel, wrote at the time that "there is no doubt that the [Moroccan] King's and the interior minister's latest steps are a result of our actions and our information campaign around the world." [BLACK/MORRIS, p. 179]

A discussion of the large number of Jewish spies for Soviet communism, and Jewish dominance of that movement, may be found HERE.

Trust No One: The Secret World of Sidney Reilly,
sidneyreillyinfo
"The man best known as Sidney George Reilly-although he used many names-spent his life in the shadows of international intrigue and counted among his legion of allies, accomplices and victims the likes of Winston Churchill, the mysterious Basil Zaharoff and Boris Savinkov. Usually portrayed as a master spy, Reilly's real exploits exceeded anything credited to Fleming's fictional Bond. The son of a Polish Jewish family in Imperial Russia, he early embarked on an amazing, daring and often bewildering career which led him to assume the personas of an Anglo-Irish gentleman, an international arms-merchant and a Bolshevik commissar among many others. He was a slightly different person to every man who knew him and every woman who loved him. But Reilly was as much a cunning master criminal as secret agent, amassing a fortune by the ruthless bartering of influence and information. He was used and feared by capitalists and commissars alike. Was he a dedicated anti-communist, the Soviet's first "mole," or simply a bold and unscrupulous con man?"

Double trouble,
by Yossi Melman, Ha'aretz (Israel), January 22, 2003
"In Israel, too, all the units that run agents - in the Shin Bet security service, in the intelligence wing of the Israel Defense Forces and in the Mossad - also try to observe this secrecy rigorously. However, in recent years, discipline has been growing lax and the names of a number of agents have become public knowledge. This began at the end of the 1980s, with hints that Rafat Ali al-Gamal, an Egyptian citizen who pretended to be a Jew and immigrated to Israel at the behest of Egyptian intelligence, was exposed by the Shin Bet, became a double agent and turned into one of the best operatives in the intelligence community. Later it was revealed that King Hussein of Jordan had met secretly with then prime minister Golda Meir at the end of September, 1973, and warned her of the approaching war with Egypt and Syria. Hussein was not an Israeli agent (in his youth, during the 1950s and the 1960s, he was a paid agent of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, as were other leaders of Third World countries). His secret meetings with Israeli leaders sprang from his understanding of his own interests and those of his kingdom. But he definitely was a 'source,' an 'intelligence asset' and what is called in professional jargon 'an agent of influence.' Later on, following the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in November, 1995, there were those who leaked that Avishai Raviv was a Shin Bet agent and also revealed his code name "Champagne," which his runners used in the missions to aid him in infiltrating the coteries of the extreme right. Now for the first time, the Egyptian media, a month ago, has revealed what it calls one of the most important assets the Mossad had in Egypt: the source who confirmed in October, 1973 that a war was in the offing. A month ago, newspapers in Egypt raised the question of whether Dr. Ashraf Marwan, a businessman who is the son-in-law of President Gamal Abdel Nasser, was an Israeli agent. In Israel, the name of the agent has never been exposed and, in the discussion surrounding his activities, he is referred to as a 'senior agent' operated by the Mossad in Egypt, who supplied Israel with important information including that regarding the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War. The person behind the debate is Dr. Ahron (Roni) Bregman, who has been living in Britain for many years and was involved several years ago in the production of a BBC television series to mark Israel's Jubilee ... Dr. Ashraf Marwan was born in 1944, the son of a respected Egyptian family who studied in England and married Muna, Nasser's third daughter, in the 1960s. The marriage brought him close to the president's innermost circle. He was given the status and title of roving ambassador, and set out on delicate diplomatic missions around the world. In the media of the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s, he was mentioned as having served as bureau chief for the presidency, and sometimes it was even noted that he was the coordinator on behalf of the president with the Egyptian intelligence services. According to these same sources, the senior agent was recruited by Israel apparently in 1969. The surprising thing is that the agent volunteered his services. One day, he walked into the Israeli Embassy in Kensington in London and offered to provide information. The mission of running him, according to these sources, was given to the Mossad. It is possible to assume that a thorough background check of him was conducted. ... ... The Mossad ... believed that the agent was not a double agent, and that before the Yom Kippur war, he delivered the goods for which he was recruited and run."

Mossad, Mossad – Coming soon to a town near you!,
Baloochistan Post (Pakistan), May 13, 2002
"In a fascinating plot, full of intrigue and betrayal, Mossad, RAW and Israeli-Russian-Ukrainian drug mafia seem to have joined hands to catch the ultimate prize: The Entire World. The whole story may never be available but we have put together enough pieces to give you a fair idea of what may be in store for all of us ... What the [Mossad] statement and the poster omit to mention is that the newly recruited case officers will be assigned to Central Asia, Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan. Recruitment drive for case officers was a part of a larger campaign run by Mossad between April 2001 and July 2001. During this period, Mossad sought to recruit case officers, communication specialists, linguists, electronics and computer specialists and entry level operatives (age 22-28) ... During last couple of years it has begun paying special attention to Pakistan, Iran and Central Asia ... In April 2001, the Mossad published a 'help wanted' ad in the Israeli press seeking electronics engineers and computer scientists for the Mossad technology unit. Since most Mossad operatives come from hi tech fields, they do the most natural thing when they leave Mossad i.e. they launch a start up company in IT, communications, computers and other related fields. The 'Or' of this story launched a successful company after leaving Mossad and his company is now reputedly worth US $ 15 million and employs more than 70 highly qualified personnel. Such persons usually move their operations to foreign countries and besides making tons of money, continue serving their motherland in hi tech fashion. Since most former operatives of Mossad are hi tech specialists, it is not difficult for them to launch a start up company and make it successful on its merit alone. While spreading out into Central Asia, Pakistan and Iran, these operatives are likely to arrive with proposals for companies which deal with IT solutions, software engineering, computer and electronics hardware expertise, communications and other related fields ... Janes information group, the world's foremost source on intelligence information, reported in July 2001 that 'The Indian spy agency RAW and the Israeli spy agency Mossad have created 'four new agencies' to infiltrate Pakistan to target important religious and military personalities, journalists, judges, lawyers and bureaucrats. In addition, bombs would be exploded in trains, railway stations, bridges, bus stations, cinemas, hotels and mosques of rival Islamic sects to incite sectarianism. Pakistani intelligence agencies also said that RAW had constituted a plan to lure Pakistani men between 20 and 30 years of age to visit India so that they could be entrapped 'in cases of fake currency and subversion' and then be coerced to spy for India' ... What is clear right now is that Indian RAW and Israeli Mossad are collaborating extensively to curb the freedom movement of Kashmir and destabilize Pakistan ... Under the euphemism of 'counter-terrorism', India is allowing Israel to establish a huge spy establishment in India which will, interalia, unearth and monitor 'Islamic fundamentalist' individuals and groups for elimination by extra judicial process or by cold-blooded murder and kidnapping ... One of the greatest abilities of Mossad is that it can mobilize US resources anywhere to protect Israeli interests. Now when Pakistan has already allowed US forces to use its soil, air and intelligence, is not it possible that Mossad’s clever brains workout a scenario and push the American troops to do what the Mossad would like to do in Pakistan? Think about it."

Mossad's chief gets agency set for action,
Washington Times, February 10, 2003
"The Mossad, Israel's shadowy counterintelligence agency, is revving up for a relentless campaign against what its tough-minded chief, Meir Dagan, regards as the most serious threats to the Jewish state — large-scale terrorism perpetrated by regional extremists, and danger they may acquire weapons of mass destruction. The campaign will be waged by means of state-of-the-art intelligence-gathering equipment, including space satellites, which have been launched independently by Israel, as well as shrewdly executed operations by agents able to avoid compromising themselves or implicating their handlers. Mr. Dagan's strategy has filtered beyond Mossad's top-secret headquarters, but the precise tactics may never become known. Even if they are deduced, described or revealed by parties at the scenes of impact, Israeli officials will neither confirm them nor accept responsibility. Like his political patron and wartime commander — Prime Minister Ariel Sharon — Mr. Dagan, who was born Meir Huberman in 1945, is relatively fond of using biblical writ, partly because Hebrew is his native language and because his generation was taught to identify with the ancient Israelites. ... Amir Oren, military and intelligence analyst for the daily Ha'aretz, said, "Twelve years ago, after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, then-Capt. Dagan ... initiated far-reaching operations deep inside Iraq' ... By the late 1990s, when he served as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's adviser on counterterrorism, Mr. Dagan implemented Israel's 'targeted killings' of suspected terrorists by hand-held weapons, air-to-ground missiles, explosive charges set off by remote-control devices and other lethal means ... Israel's adventures in Lebanon are almost as much a trauma for Mr. Dagan as they have been for Mr. Sharon. Their frustrating experiences there are cited by Ha'aretz's Mr. Oren. 'Mr. Sharon expects Mr. Dagan to infuse the Mossad with heavy doses of aggressiveness, duplicity and fiendishness,' he wrote in Ha'aretz. 'These have been Mr. Dagan's personal characteristics throughout his career.'"

Soviet Mata Hari. That was she who stole US nuclear secrets,
Pravda (Russisa), February 12, 2003
"Yelizaveta Zarubina realized dozens of fruitful operations [as a Russian spy], recruited hundreds of sources. She new 6 languages, and was a person of great culture and simply a beautiful women who attracted men. At the same time she was modest, even shy. In the USSR, she was the only foreigner who rose to the rank of KGB colonel. The name of Yelizaveta Zarubina became known after World War II, when the US press published some unclassified archive documents. At the same time, some versions appeared which disclosed sensational details of the Soviet intelligence operations in the US during WW II. In the 1990s, when memoirs of some intelligence workers were published, the role of Yelizaveta Zarubina in obtaining US nuclear bomb secrets became known. In particular, she established contacts with Robert Oppenheimer, before he became the leader of the Manhattan Project. Today, Russian intelligence still cannot declassify the original file of Yelizaveta Zarubina: her activity was really very large-scale. Though, in the museum of Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, there is an exposure of Yelizaveta Zarubina. In official publications, some details of her biography are either inexact, or they are absent at all. Information about her is kept in closed party archives. So, who was Yelizaveta Zarubina (Rosenzweig), called in our story Soviet Mata Hari? She was born in North Bukovina, which was a part of Austrian-Hungarian Empire and belonged after WW II to Romania. She was philologist and fluently spoke Romanian, Russian, English, French, and German. Among her relatives, there were prominent political and military figures who suffered from Stalin’s repressive measures because of their independent views or Jewish origin. Liza started to work for intelligence since 1919. She worked for some time in the secretariat of Soviet intelligence founder Felix Dzerzinski. Her first husband was famous Blumkin, who worked for Russian Special Commission and participated in annihilation of German ambassador Mirbach in 1918. Moreover, Blumkin was a key figure in the conspiracy of the Socialist-Revolutionist Party (SR) against Vladimir Lenin. Later Blumkin came cap in hand to Dzerzinski, was excused, and started to work for the Special Commission (ChK). In 1929, Blumkin was the head of an illegal intelligence group in Turkey. Fulfilling the Soviet government orders, he sold Hasid [Jewish ultra-Orthodox] books from special funds of Lenin State Library. The money was aimed for creation of a diversion terrorist unit to fight against Great Britain in the Middle East. Blumkin kept some part of money and handed it over to Lev Trotsky. Moreover, he was a kind of messenger between him and his supporters in the USSR. When Liza learned these facts, she reported them to the ChK leadership, and Blumkin was arrested. Now Liza was single again. A charming girl, she easily established contacts in different circles and gathered necessary information. For her service purposes, she often changed her appearance. Several years after her divorce, she married Vasily Zarubin, professional secret service man. Since 1929, the couple started to prepare for illegal work in France, where they lived as the Kocheks, Czech merchants. The couple became legal in Denmark, then they go to France. Some of their French contacts are still not opened, and some of them are probably still actual. Some contacts, for example that ones in German diplomatic corps in Paris, were actively used later, when fascist came to power. Since December 1933, the Zarubins acted in the Hitler Reich. That were they who recruited the Gestapo worker, Willy Lehman (nick 'Breinbach'), who became a Soviet intelligence agent ... The legendary Soviet spy woman died in 1987 as an aged woman, as a result of an accident."

Israeli Spies Aided Feds In Readying 'Jihad' Case Mossad Key On Al-Arian, [Jewish] Forward, February 28, 2003
"Intelligence supplied by Israel played a key role in the indictment last week of University of South Florida professor Sami Al-Arian on charges that he is a leader of the Islamic Jihad Palestinian terrorist group, the Forward has learned. An FBI delegation traveled to Israel late last year to collect intelligence obtained by Israel during the mid-1990s, a former top counterterrorist official said on condition of anonymity. 'The evidence the U.S. government has is intelligence, much of it from the Israeli government, relating to 1994 — when the Mossad had a penetration of [Islamic Jihad] headquarters in Damascus,' the official said. 'Much of the intelligence was turned over to the FBI on a recent visit to Israel.' The FBI and the Justice Department would not comment. Jonathan Peled, a spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry, acknowledged that Israel was cooperating with American authorities, although he said he did not have specific knowledge about the Al-Arian case or of the FBI visit. Matthew Levitt, a former FBI official now with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a pro-Israel think tank, acknowledged that 'Israel has every reason to be very forthcoming' on Islamic Jihad and that he had 'heard about' the FBI trip. However, he stressed that 'there was no reason to assume that the indictment was not mostly based on U.S. intelligence and police work,' essentially phone and fax wiretaps started in 1994. Al-Arian, a tenured computer engineering professor at the University of South Florida, was charged with racketeering along with seven other people. In a 50-count indictment unsealed last Thursday in Tampa, prosecutors accused the eight men of conspiring since 1984 to support Islamic Jihad by helping finance and organize suicide bombings in Israel. It is the first time an indictment is centered on terrorist acts committed abroad."

[Author Neal Sher "is a Washington attorney and former director of the Office of Special Investigations in the Justice Department. He is also a former executive director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee." Sher's "personal memoir" below makes it look like he was rather tight with the Israeli spy world.]
Isser Harel: A personal memoir,
by Neal M. Sher, Jewish World Review, March 5, 2003
"The people of Israel indeed, Jews the world over have lost a genuine hero. Last month, Isser Harel, the world-renowned spymaster and one of the founders of the Mossad, died in Tel Aviv. Best known for planning and executing the extraordinary capture of Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aires in 1960 a feat which made the whole world take notice of Israel's ingenuity and capabilities Harel's contribution to the security of the fledgling State of Israel cannot be overstated. As anyone who knew him or worked with him will attest, he was, despite his diminutive size, a giant. I am among the privileged who had an opportunity to work with or, to be accurate, be counseled by the legendary Harel. In 1985, as the director of the Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations, I headed the US team charged with searching for the infamous Josef Mengele (in concert with the Israelis and Germans.) My first order of business was to seek the advice of the man who had orchestrated the most daring of Nazi hunts ... I MADE a point of meeting with Harel whenever I visited Israel; he was as interested in the work of OSI as I was to soak up his insights on the current state of affairs. During our regular lunches at the Triana restaurant in Tel Aviv, I realized that I was in the company of a larger-than-life hero of our people ... Rest in peace, my friend. You have served your nation and people well."

Israel quietly playing key spy role,
New York Daily News, March 29, 2003
"From a spy satellite orbiting overhead to clandestine operations in western Iraq, Israel is a strong ally in the U.S.-led war against Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. But it's mostly a silent partnership because the Bush administration doesn't want to advertise Israel's help, fearing a backlash among Arab nations - particularly key allies like Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Behind the scenes, however, the Israelis are heavily engaged. Their sophisticated Amos 4 satellite routinely beams data to U.S. intelligence, and Israeli agents in Baghdad have provided extremely sensitive intelligence, sources told the Daily News. Israel has been particularly aggressive in the desert of western Iraq, where its Sayeret Matkal commando force, in tandem with U.S. and Australian special forces, has run covert operations hunting for Scud missile launch sites."

Subject: Saddam is Alive,
by Gordon Thomas, yourmailinglistprovider.com (from globe-intel.net)
"If [Saddam is] alive, then Bush wants him to face justice in either an American controlled court in Iraq – or a trial in the United States. Paul Wolfowitz, US deputy secretary of defence, has indicated 'this is personal for George – and he wants Saddam to face American justice for his part in 9/11'. Helping Bush achieve that are the hardmen of the intelligence world – Mossad’s spies. Not only have they been the only spies on the ground during the Saddam regime – but they have also played a vital role in the run up to, and during, the war with Iraq. It was their intelligence which enabled Coalition troops to storm up into Baghdad in record time. No other agency is so well-entrenched in the Arab capitals of the region. Now, those agents, under the direction of Mossad chief Meir Dagan, have reinforced the Mossad men already in Iraq. They are part of an operation squad, codenamed Caesarea. Many are Iraqi Jews. 'They can track as well as any Bedouin. They speak the desert dialects. They eat, sleep and behave in every way like an Arab. That is what makes them so unique', one of Dagan’s staff said. Years ago, Mossad had an agent inside the inner circle of Syria’s leadership. The man, Eli Cohen, time and again gave Tel Aviv vital forewarning of a Syrian threat. Rafi Eitan, the former Operations Chief with Mossad, secreted a spy into King Hussein of Jordan’s palace. 'Our man gave us information that no other service had – not the CIA or MI6. Not anybody', Eitan said. Unknown to Saddam, Mossad had an agent within the top echelon of the Iraqi leadership. Last week, the spy managed to plant a homing device in the briefcase of one of Saddam’s top aides when they met for a dinner meeting at the al-Saa restaurant, in Baghdad’s Mansour district. Over thirty of Iraq’s Special Security Organisation and senior military intelligence officers had gathered in the expensive restaurant to hear Saddam speak ... But, with that sixth sense for which he was renowned, Saddam for as yet an unexplained reason became suspicious. He left the restaurant – but ordered everybody else to remain present. Four minutes later, 300,000 feet above the restaurant, US weapons officer Lt-Col Fred Swan programmed the coordinates in his BI bomber."